Where our data comes from

In onboarding you rank eight things by how much they matter to you. That ranking, and nothing else, decides the order courses appear in. There is no Writ score, no editorial weighting, and no way for a university to pay to move up.

All eight are backed by real data. Location is the one that needs something from you first: if it lands in your top three, we ask which parts of the country you would actually consider, and courses there rise. We would rather ask than guess where someone wants to live.

Every figure is compared within its own subject. A £30,000 median salary is strong for History and modest for Medicine, so comparing raw salaries across subjects would just sort your list by subject rather than by quality.

• We never guess.

  Our course list and the official datasets name courses differently. Where we cannot prove two entries are the same degree, that course shows no figures at all rather than borrowing a similar course's numbers. Putting one degree's graduate salary on another is the worst thing a tool like this could do, so a blank space is the honest answer and you will see a few of them.

• We never fill a gap with an average.

  Where a figure was withheld because too few students were involved, the space stays empty. We do not substitute the subject average, the university average, or last year's number.

• No university pays to appear here.

  There is no sponsored placement anywhere in the course finder, and no university can influence its position.

• Your priorities never reach the writing coach.

  What matters to you when choosing a course is not what should shape a personal statement. If the coach knew you ranked earnings first it would start steering your statement toward justifying a salary, which is exactly what admissions tutors mark down. That separation is enforced in the software, not just intended.

• Offer rates describe a subject area, not one course.

  UCAS publishes how many offers each university makes in each broad subject area, not for individual degrees. So every History course at a university shares a figure with every Philosophy course there. It is a real measure of how selective that university is in that area. It is not a prediction of your chances on one specific course.

• Earnings describe people who graduated years ago.

  Earnings are measured three and five years after graduation, so the most recent figures describe students who started university around a decade ago. That is what it means to measure real outcomes rather than promises — but it is history, not a forecast.

• Research quality is matched carefully but not perfectly.

  Research is assessed in its own categories, which do not line up exactly with the subject groupings used everywhere else. We map them as closely as we can and mark every research figure as approximate, because it is a weaker claim than the others.

• Entry requirements are typical, not binding.

  Published offers vary by college, by contextual circumstances, by admissions test performance and by year. Always confirm on the university's own page, which every course card links to.

Open any course and use the report link inside it, or email enquiries@writai.co.uk. Corrections to course data are checked against the university's own page before anything changes.